


Five People Obi-Wan Meets in Gardulla's Palace

by Tassos



Series: In Want of a Hyperdrive and other stories [3]
Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Child Abuse, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Original Character(s), Slavery, Tatooine Slave Culture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:21:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25594213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tassos/pseuds/Tassos
Summary: Set in an alternate universe where on a ship headed for Bandomeer as a boy, Obi-Wan was captured by slavers and then sold to Gardulla the Hutt on Tatooine.Five people Obi-Wan meets in Gardulla's Palace.
Series: In Want of a Hyperdrive and other stories [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1807135
Comments: 15
Kudos: 199





	Five People Obi-Wan Meets in Gardulla's Palace

**Author's Note:**

> Obi-Wan is 14-15 in this story. This is part of his backstory for [In Want of a Hyperdrive](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24325984/chapters/58649908).
> 
> Credits: This story is set in the Tatooine Slave Culture world-building by [Fialleril](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fialleril/pseuds/Fialleril). Their works are excellent and highly recommended. I reference symbolism, folklore, attitudes, community, and language from their fic and tumblr posts. The main things to know upfront are depur means master; Ekkreth is the trickster god, the one who makes free, whose name translates to Skywalker in Basic; Ar-Amu is the mother goddess; Elder Sister also called Leia the Mighty is the krayt dragon; in the slave language Amatakka freedom and death are the same word; the name Anakin means bringer of rain, which refers to the story that when the rain comes the slaves will be free; tzai is a spicy tea they enslaved drink.

#### 1\. Lor the beast master

The Broker buys Obi-Wan despite his shock collar, and marks him for the pits. The Overseer takes one look at his skinny, underfed frame, rolls his eyes, but sends him along anyway with the rest of the slaves who've got fighting spirit and a half chance against a womp rat. The Pit Master watches the boy dodge another fighter twice his size for fifteen minutes before sending him off to Lor. But he makes a note for the boy to get full rations and water, and in six months rotate him back in for training. He's human, but fast, and he's got good instincts, for all that he'd snap in two if he went into the pits now.

Obi-Wan doesn't know any of this when he follows the older slave he's been assigned to help. He's out of breath from keeping from dying, trying to keep his feelings on the inside. But the Force is loud in his ears, lit up like nothing he remembers. He's concentrating on keeping it in, keeping his connection to it hidden. He doesn't want the shock collar back. He doesn't want to cause trouble. He doesn't want to be punished or watch anyone be punished in his stead, because as much as he told himself he didn't care—couldn't care—about anyone but himself, it didn't make it any less terrible. Any less his fault.

So he can't let any one know he's Force-sensitive. Can't let anyone know he was almost a Jedi before the Jedi decided they didn't want him. 

He's concentrating so hard he misses the slave stopping and bumps into him.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Obi-Wan jumps backward, hands out, head down. His heart is racing and he's braced for the shock.

"Peace, boy," the old man says, his hands out and open. "I'm no overseer. It's only me down here. Only me."

Obi-Wan forces himself to breathe, glancing up carefully. He's locked his shields down, cutting himself off from the Force as much as he can out of habit. It always hurt more when he was touching the Force. But the old man simply stands there patiently, watching him with a look in his eye that throws Obi-Wan viscerally back to the Temple hangar when Master Yoda saw him off to Bandomeer. 

Obi-Wan had been angry then, and scared, although he wouldn't admit it. "Trust the Force, you must, young Obi-Wan," Master Yoda had said, eyes all too knowing.

Obi-Wan doesn't anymore. Nearly two years a slave for a slaver have crushed more than hope. But the old slave is watching him carefully, hands still held out, alert, wary. Like Obi-Wan might attack. Or run. 

Obi-Wan relaxes, muscle by muscle. He'd placed his feet to jump away without quite realizing it. Slowly he straightens, and Yoda's words are bright in his mind. He's not on Bandir's ship wearing a shock collar. He's on Tatooine with an explosive somewhere in his body. As long as he doesn't leave the Palace or cause trouble, he won't be hurt.

The old slave gives him a nod. "What's your name?"

"Obi-Wan," he whispers. 

"Obi-Wan. Well met, Obi-Wan." The old man smiles. "I am Lor Sandspeaker. I care for the the pit beasts, and you will be caring for them with me." He gestured toward the reinforced doorway a little farther down the corridor.

Carefully, so carefully, Obi-Wan lowers his barrier to the Force and stretches out his senses. Beyond the door is a teeming mass of roiling life indistinguishable from the sense of lifeness that permeates most worlds.

"I can't promise that you won't one day have to fight them," Lor says, his eyes steady on Obi-Wan's as he tells him a truth that Obi-Wan already knows. "But for now, you stick by me."

Obi-Wan follows Lor through the door, holding his breath as much from the smell as from the sudden primal fear at being so close to teeth and claws, held back by bars and crackles of electricity that appear too flimsy to hold back the beasts.

Lor shows him his responsibilities, how to work the controls and doors that act like an airlock so they can clean the pens. Other slaves work farther down the stable, a half dozen or more, and Lor introduces Obi-Wan to a few of them, saying their names, Eppa and Tylo-sih, and after each one, Obi-Wan feels the cadence of their greetings, though he keeps silent but for a polite nod.

It wouldn't do to grow close to anyone.

* * *

The boy is a quiet one. 

Lor's not surprised, really. A lot of new slaves, unsure of the order of things, are quiet, getting the lay of the land. But Obi-Wan was marked for the pits, and that usually means a fiery temperament and a mouth to go with it. Most his age can't wait for a knife in their hands, brash and boastful, believing all the stories of glory and freedom through the pit fights. 

Most of them end up dead.

But as Lor watches his new charge carefully following his instructions for mixing the feed, he thinks this one is smart. This one pays attention. This one is a survivor.

The boy's got a collar scar and a bit of a tremble that he shakes off with an ease so casual, Lor would have missed it had he not been looking for it. He's fresh from off-world and doesn't speak the secret language slaves speak amongst themselves on Tatooine, but Lor think he hears the spaces where it's supposed to be. 

He stays quiet though. Silent and watchful.

He takes the boy back to the one of two main barracks for the Palace slaves when they finish up. No need for him to stay with the pit fighters. Not until he really becomes one of them. Which he might not. Some don't have the temperament for it, and Lor thinks maybe, the boy doesn't after all, no matter the mark on his neck. Depur has more than one reason to collar a slave. He doesn't even need a reason at all.

No one pays them any mind as he gets Obi-Wan settled into an empty bunk near his, but Obi-Wan pays attention to everyone else. 

"Not many slaves for your last master?" he asks over his shoulder. "Hope you weren't expecting your own room here."

The boy startles, but recovers quick enough. Learned that lesson, he has, which is good for survivors. He licks his lips, watching his words. "I was kept apart from the others," he says quietly. His eyes drop. "It was better that way."

Lor doesn't ask what he did to earn that punishment. Instead he grasps the boy by the shoulder, noting but ignoring his flinch. 

"It wasn't better," he says gently. He squeezes the boy's shoulder to make sure he's listening in all the right ways. "You won't be sleeping alone here."

Then he gets the boy settled before he can protest. But the boy apparently knows what's good for him, because he bites his lip on whatever he was going to say and listens at least when Lor tells him to come sit with him if he can't sleep.

* * *

#### 2\. Kyass the kitchen master

Kyass is loud, always annoyed and gets away with far more than she should. She makes sure Overseer gets the least stupid helpers, gets to eat first the best portions from the kitchen second only to Depur, and she gets away with it. The kitchen is hers as much as it can be anyone's and she runs it as strictly as the various Masters run their fiefdoms in the Palace. She's as feared by the slaves under her, and all who eat at her tables know that they defy her orders at their peril.

Obi-Wan doesn't know any of this when he shows up to eat with the workers from Lor's barracks instead of the pit fighters Kyass had been expecting him to be with. When he scans the ident chip embedded in his forearm that holds the name of his owner, his number, and his ration status, the droid pulls him out of line.

Obi-Wan doesn't mean to, tries not to, but his hands start shaking, sure he's done something wrong and that he'll be punished for it. Lor's already gone, carried by the wave in the line, but he'd looked worried, even though all Obi-Wan had done was copy the others. He'd been so sure he'd done it right. He can't see the guards but he knows they're there. He'd stretch out his senses, but he might knock something over by accident across the room, and then they'd know his secret and it'd be the collar and what if it's the shock batons anyway.

"This him?" The voice is loud and the droid immediately turns its head and starts babbling that he came in with the wrong section, but Obi-Wan can't focus enough to listen. 

The female in front of him is large and blue and looking down her long nose at him with black eyes. He doesn't recognize her species but she looks like she could break him in half without trying. Obi-Wan is pretty sure that's exactly what she's going to do. Her brown tunic is stained and she smells powerfully of a sharp spice that makes his nose twitch. 

"You. Name." She cuts the droid off mid-word and it falls silent and returns its full attention to scanning people through the line.

It takes a few tries, eyes studying her blue knees, but he finally manages to say, "Obi-Wan."

"You're listed as a pit fighter, Obi-Wan. That means you eat with the pit fighters if you want to eat. They eat first shift. No exceptions."

He nods his head, eyes falling to her boots protecting large round feet. He hears her sigh, then one big four-fingered hand is shoving him back in line. "You'll get worker's rations today. But don't forget. No exceptions."

Obi-Wan's not sure if he dodged a punishment, or if it's still hanging over him, but he gets his ration of blue porridge and finds Lor and eats quickly and silently, trying not to let his spoon shake. 

Lor tells him later that he'd best do what she says. She's Kyass, the kitchen master, though she's a slave like the rest of them. She decides who eats and who doesn't and the masters let her because she makes only the best for them. He sends Obi-Wan to their next meal early, so he can eat first shift with the fighters. 

He ends up last in line with the scrawnier of the fighters who are young and scared like him, though only one other has another job like him. He spends his time unclogging refresher pipes. He doesn't tell Obi-Wan this, and Obi-Wan doesn't ask, but the others, slightly older, slightly higher on the pecking order, make joke after joke that he's getting good practice smelling like shit because he's going to shit his pants when he joins them in the pits, and then they're going to make him eat it.

While they're laughing and stealing food from his bowl, one of the ones laughing loudest turns his beady eyes on Obi-Wan, who's sitting apart from the others, but there's only so far he can go.

"We've got another runt!" The being is human, maybe a couple years older, but already brawny and mean, with a nose that's been broken and healed crooked. Obi-Wan feels beady eyes slide over him, and when he glances up, catches a grin on the brawler's face and a glint in his eye that remind him of Bandir. 

Like he sees prey. Like he wants to hurt him. 

Seeing it, Obi-Wan is overcome by a wave of fury that swamps his fear, because they are the same. 

They are both slaves. They are both trapped, captive, with their lives held in the hands of their masters. It's not fair and it's not right that they turn on each other. 

His anger flares hot—and he knows he shouldn't be angry, but he's forgotten how not to be—and he glares at this man who reminds him of Bandir but isn't. 

He isn't Bandir and doesn't have the controls to a collar that Obi-Wan no longer wears. He thinks, _Don't you dare touch me._

Anger only sustains him until the others start looking around to see what's caught the brawler's attention. Dropping his eyes to his bowl, Obi-Wan's fear reasserts itself, shaded by shame for his cowardice. 

_Don't look, don't look. I'm not worth it_. He manages to keep the shakes from spilling his porridge, and waits for the blow.

But it doesn't come. It keeps not coming, through that meal and the next. The brawler decides he's not worth it, and the others follow his lead and go back to tormenting the other boy. 

_He's not worth it either._ Obi-Wan counts himself lucky and keeps himself to himself. He tries not flinch as he listens to the taunting meant for someone else, waiting for it to fall on him. It's only a matter of time. They're already beginning to lose interest in the other boy. 

After three days of eating with first shift, Obi-Wan decides full rations aren't worth it. He ignores Lor when he tries to send him early and follows him to the mess hall at second shift. He gets pulled from line again, but this time he's expecting it, and this time, he gives Kyass a long look when she comes over to tell him "No exceptions," before he drops his eyes.

"I don't want an exception."

"Hmm." She says, propping her hands on her hips as she considers him. Eventually, she pushes him back in line. Obi-Wan never finds out why, but a few days later, he's eating full rations again.

* * *

The boy is always in the wrong place. 

It drives Kyass batty, and she can't understand why no one else seems to mind. He's listed as a fighter but is nothing like them. He's small and ripe for their punishment when he shows up for first shift meals, but one glare and Gupter leaves him alone. And the next day too, and then Kyass watches, not quite believing it, when Gupter and his like leave the other runt of the pack alone too, their attention passing over him as if they've collectively decided that he doesn't exist. 

Kyass doesn't know what happened. Doesn't really care except it makes cleaning up after first shift's meal easier because there's no spilled porridge to collect and mix back into the pot, grit and all. 

But then the boy, the newest, the one working with the beasts, skips first shift meal. Kyass is annoyed—she has her rules for a reason, she doesn't need fights in her hall—but then Gupter is back at it, poking at the other runt like the last three days of ignoring him hadn't happened. 

When Lor's boy arrives to eat with second shift, she figures out why he was bought to fight. The look he gives her is all grit and determination. He's braced for the worst and surprised when it doesn't come—but he'd risked it anyway. He eats his reduced rations without complaint, sitting quietly with the others who work with the beasts. 

Kyass swears it's the last time she'll make an exception to her rules. The boy might not think she's making one—he's on worker rations for the day, but Kyass knows and her underlings know and it won't do. She pulls him out of line every day that first week, and just when she's about to tell him that No Exceptions means no meal at all, not just reduced rations, she . . . decides she's not that committed to starving young ones. 

It's not like her—she has a reputation after all—and as soon as the meal shift is over, she regrets it. 

But then the first shift comes around and she watches the runt get bullied, and thinks about the three days Gupter left both boys alone. Lor's boy hadn't said anything. But he'd done . . . something. By the end of the week she's sure of it. She wishes he'd do it again. But he's taken himself away from the fighters and no one seems to mind. Kyass decides she doesn't mind either and lets him carve himself his own place.

* * *

#### 3\. Grandmother Adare the storyteller

Lor doesn't ask permission to house Obi-Wan in the workers' barracks rather than the fighters'. The Pit Master privately agrees that the boy would be less than worthless if the fighters got their hands on him before he's been tempered, but he slams his baton into Lor's stomach anyway, just to remind him that he's in no position to decide anything, before going to clear it with the Overseer.

Obi-Wan doesn't know any of this as he becomes Lor's shadow in the barracks. He feels like an outsider—as he'd been an outsider among Bandir's slaves. 

The slaves speak another language in the barracks. They're quiet around Obi-Wan at first. Conversations trailing off as he nears. But as the days turn to weeks, and Obi-Wan keeps himself to himself and doesn't try to talk to anyone, his fellow slaves continue their conversations. Some even start nodding to him in greeting. Slowly, carefully, Obi-Wan nods back. He doesn't want to make friends, but he doesn't want enemies either. 

No one here knows he can do things he's not supposed to. Obi-Wan makes sure they never have a reason to suspect.

In the evenings, the slaves gather in the area between the two main barracks. It's a bare room, with old droid parts remade into benches, cook pots and a small heating element where someone makes a spicy drink that is shared around, passed hand to hand in a handful of bowls. 

At first, Obi-Wan doesn't join them. He retreats to his bunk as soon as they're released from their work for the day and collapses exhausted into sleep. Eventually sleep stops claiming him early, and Lor starts asking if he's coming. But each time, Obi-Wan curls up around his knees and shakes his head. 

He doesn't know what to do with kindness anymore. 

One night, a little while after Lor and the others go to the other room, an old woman comes into the barracks. Obi-Wan's head jerks at the movement by the door, and he watches as she makes her slow but sure way toward him. He's tempted to move, get out of her way. Surely she wouldn't be looking for him, except he's the only one in the bunk room.

The old woman is human, short and slope-shouldered, but her eyes are bright. Her skin is a deep brown and wrinkled and spotted, and she moves with care, but there's strength in her grip when she reaches Obi-Wan and says, "Help me sit, young one," and Obi-Wan, unable to say no, takes her hand and helps her sit beside him.

"So," she says. "I will tell you a story. It's a story of the desert." And she tells him how life began on Tatooine, of Sarlaac and the sand, and then she tells him of the first offworlders and the first slave who went into the desert sandstorm and found rest.

Obi-Wan listens closely and is startled when at end the old woman cups his face with hands as dry as the desert and swipes at the tears on his face with her thumbs. 

"I tell you this story to save your life," she says. "Will you remember?"

There are a hundred pieces inside of him that have been broken apart and shaken loose. He's tried and tried and tries again now to put them back together, but the pieces slip through his fingers. He gives her a shaky nod, and that seems to be enough. 

She says something in the slaves' language that ends with his name, which makes Obi-Wan blink and startle, stare at her wide-eyed. He didn't know she knew his name. 

She says the phrase again, slightly modified, tapping her chest on her name, Adare, adding a changed particle at the end. The parts of Obi-Wan's brain that used to do well in language classes sluggishly pay attention.

He gives it a try, her phrase with his name, and the old woman grins, offering a correction for him to repeat. 

"I am Obi-Wan," he says again in the slave language, and though his name has never changed, it feels like taking a bit of himself back.

* * *

The boy is quick. 

Grandmother Adare is surprised because most bought for the pits aren't that bright or are too angry to listen. But Obi-Wan is bright and Obi-Wan listens, though he doesn't want anyone to know it on either count. Being as silent and quiet as a sand snake may fool Depur but it doesn't fool Adare.

It takes coaxing, but eventually Obi-Wan joins them in the evening for tzai and to listen to stories. He doesn't understand them yet, but Adare knows that he will soon. He hangs back on the edges at first, but Lor brings him into the circle, and the nice thing about circles is that Grandmother Adare can reserve a little more space beside her as if it just happened to be there. With the little ones at her feet, it's all the same where those grown sit, and Lor's no fool.

Obi-Wan isn't either but he won't speak in the group, which means he doesn't protest. It's a step forward, and it only takes one of the little ones crawling into his lap to get closer to Grandmother Adare's storytelling to find another step for him to take. 

The poor boy is terrified of hurting the child and has no idea how to hold her as she squirms in his lap, so entranced by the story she barely sees who she's holding onto. Mrrri has never been a shy one.

But he figures it out well enough that she doesn't fall, and at one point, Adare moves his hands where he'll have a surer hold, without breaking her telling, and when the young ones accept him, those grown relax and do, too.

Obi-Wan doesn't relax. Not unless he's got something else to worry about, and even then, his thoughts are inward, always inward. When she's not telling stories, when it's a night for gossip or chatting, Adare leans in and tells him in Basic what's being said, what the cadence of having people and place mean. 

He takes an interest in her words first, and then, slowly, week after weary week until it's time to count his time with them in months, when the children are fearless and Eppa tells a joke slowly enough for Obi-Wan to follow, he starts to take an interest in what's said, too. 

He still doesn't relax, not really. Caution and quiet have been beaten into him deep. Finding his way again will take time, Grandmother Adare knows. But she's patient.

* * *

#### 4\. Tyral the elder

Gardulla's Palace is made up of overlapping hierarchies. Gardulla herself is at the top of course, with her trusted business functionaries who run her empire next. Below them are business partners and the upper echelons of Mos Espa's society, while they're in favor, and then the various free sentients and guards who are paid to keep the Palace running by managing day to day affairs and the small army of slaves and droids who provide the labor. 

The slaves are no exception to the hierarchy, for things work smoothest with leadership from within, and that's where Tyral the elder comes in. 

He's an elder only in as much as he's a leader, standing half Lor's age but with a deformed arm that kept a man of his otherwise solid stature from being thrown in as a pit fighter along with most other males of a headstrong disposition. 

More than his arm, what set Tyral apart was his brain and diplomatic grace that endeared him to the task masters and functionaries, while among the slaves it was even odds whether one despised him or not. Nevertheless he was the understood leader, and all respected that whatever his methods he did his best to keep as many as he could safe.

Obi-Wan doesn't know any of this when Pit Master pulls him from his duties one morning and leads him to the training grounds where the other young beings already in training are waiting at one end. They all jump to attention and Obi-Wan doesn't know if he's supposed to join them or not. He holds still and waits to be given instructions.

The others are all a little older than he is. A couple had been bought in the same batch, and he sees the brawler who had called him a runt those few times he'd eaten with them, months ago now. He doesn't see the other boy his age who had been picked on.

The Pit Master yells at them to form up and they gather in a half circle, gripping non-bladed weapons and shifting into ready stances. Obi-Wan has a bad feeling about it even as he's helpless against Pit Master's push to the center of the circle.

"Let's see if you're still fighter material," he says, and then with little warning he tosses a metal baton that hits Obi-Wan's shoulder hard and shouts, "Fight!"

The first attacker is on him before Obi-Wan has a chance to scrabble for the baton on the floor. He dodges, barely, and then is hit by the blow of the next boy to his side that feels like it breaks his rib. Pain explodes through him, but it also clears the confusion, and Obi-Wan stops thinking and dodges and dodges and dodges.

He's not sure how long it lasts. Not long, he thinks because the others have barely broken a sweat when Pit Master calls a halt. Obi-Wan wants to collapse, curl around the pain in his side and burrow into his bed, away from the world. He keeps his feet through sheer stubbornness, but Pit Master is barely looking at him. He sends the others to pair off for drills with the veteran fighters, while he keeps his eyes on a human slave at the doorway that Obi-Wan has seen in the evenings but never spoken to.

"What do you want?" Pit Master demands, a shadow in the tone of his voice.

"I beg your pardon, Master," the slave bows deeply. "Task Master asked me to inspect the boy after you were done with him. He asked me to convey his deepest consideration for your need to test him, and remind you that incapacitated slaves eat but do not work. The budget you understand."

Pit Master fairly radiates annoyance. "You tell Task Master that he can lick my testicles if he's such a coward he can't tell me himself." He spits on the ground in the direction of the slave who keeps his head bowed. "Well, take him then. He's in one kriffin piece."

The slave hurries forward, bows again to Pit Master and ushers Obi-Wan away. 

He doesn't stop until they're in a deserted back hallway. Only then does he turn and give Obi-Wan a once over from head to toe with a calculating gaze that isn't much better than Pit Master's.

"Is anything broken that'll keep you from working?" he asks. Obi-Wan's side burns but he shakes his head. "Good. That's the most important thing. Always be able to work. A useless slave is one not worth feeding."

Obi-Wan nods, keeping his head down. It's not the first time he's had that threat held over him.

He hears the older slave sigh. "You've got good instincts up there. They'll make a fighter of you when you've got a little more height." He doesn't make it sound like a good thing.

Obi-Wan risks a look up. The slave has long dark hair, braided back, and his skin is a deep bronze of one who's spent a lot of time in the sun. It's not uncommon among the slaves on Tatooine, but his weathered skin makes it hard to tell his age. He could be thirty or fifty or anywhere in between. His right arm is deformed, the forearm shorter than his left, and his hand curls inward into a hook-like shape.

"Obi-Wan, is it?" he says into the silence. "I'm Tyral. You get pulled off your duty, or see someone pulled off, you get me, you hear? I need you to speak up now."

"Yes," Obi-Wan says.

Tyral claps him on the shoulder with his good hand. "I can't make promises, but we look out for each other. Even if all we can do is bear witness." He sighs again and starts walking down the corridor. Obi-Wan trails behind him, trying not to breathe deeply.

He considers his question before he decides to ask. "Do you know what happened to the other boy, that was to be a fighter like me? He had another job."

"He died," Tyral says flatly. "Pit Master pulled him and the others beat him to death." He stops again and turns once more, this time taking a step into Obi-Wan's space. "You're fodder to them. Don't forget that. But you're a person, here." He pokes Obi-Wan hard in the chest. "Don't forget that either."

The spot he touched feels like the center of the knot that Obi-Wan carries with him all the time. He feels off-kilter, the words coming too fast to absorb properly. Of course he's a person, Obi-Wan knows that. He knows that and it still feels like a secret, a revelation, a heresy spoken aloud in these halls where anyone could hear. They ring in his head all the way back to the barracks.

* * *

The boy bends but doesn't break. 

Tyral sees his shoulders straighten in the back hallway despite the wallop to his side that's going to bruise like a purple bloom. He's been trodden down hard by the slavers who sold him to Gardulla, but they hadn't been able to quash his spark. He'll need it if he's to be a fighter. 

Tyral has been keeping his distance to see if he's worth putting a word in for. 

Young and clean as he is, he's lucky he hasn't been selected to join the dancers. A small mercy of that shock collar scar. Maybe he'll last long enough in the pits to make it worth it. Lor wants him on the stable detail full time, but after that display up in the training pit, Tyral knows his fate is sealed. He's strong and fast despite his size. Still, he's managed not to be transferred so far, and maybe that will be enough to keep that spark from going out. 

It's a lot of maybes, but that's the currency that Tyral's learned to work with. 

Lor fusses the next day, and the boy is cautious. But his head is not as bent, and the ease he's started to find in the evening gatherings isn't long in returning a few days later. It's another week, after a few rumors make the rounds, that Tyral talks to Xashi and brings him over to sit with Lor and the boy after story time and the little ones have been bundled to bed. Xashi's never fought in the pits, but he minds their supplies and he watches their practices.

"You should listen to what he knows," Tyral tells Obi-Wan, meeting the boy's uncertain eyes. Lor clasps the boy's shoulder in gentle reassurance, and Xashi flicks his tail in a sign that he knows what he's about. 

Tyral moves on to talk to others that need his ear, but he keeps an eye on Obi-Wan the next few nights, sees him listen. Maybe it won't help when he's called to the fighters ring full time. But maybe it will, and that's reason enough for Tyral.

* * *

#### 5\. Shmi Skywalker the mechanic

New slaves come and go in Gardulla's Palace, and Shmi usually doesn't pay them any mind. She gets up in the mornings before sunrise, does her rounds, and unless the new folks are in her work group, she doesn't care to get to know anyone who might be leaving—or dying—before they've been seasoned. Especially the slaves bought from off-world. Especially the slaves marked for the pits. The new boy catches her eye only in as much as he's being housed in the main barracks until he's called up. She thinks it's a cruelty, and Lor is a fool for taking him under his wing.

Obi-Wan doesn't know any of this when the rollo's cage jams open and Shmi shows up to fix it. He doesn't look at her much to be honest, a glance over his shoulder when he hears Lor speak to the newcomer, and then his attention is back on keeping the rollo distracted from trying to escape.

The rollo isn't native to Tatooine. Obi-Wan doesn't know where she's been imported from, but he thinks it's a desert, or at least a dry planet, because she's got the same kind of protective plates and tough skin as many of the Tatooine beasts. The rollo's plates overlap so she can curl into a defensive ball, and she has spines that pop up when she does, making her a large spiky wrecking ball when she throws herself at her prey. She's one of the smaller beasts in Gardulla's stable, but that only means she's twice Obi-Wan's height rather than five times his size.

"I'll be as quick as I can," the female mechanic says when she inspects the broken lock. She has dark hair and dark eyes that narrow in concentration. 

Obi-Wan says to the rollo that it won't be long now, girl. "You just stay put for me, won't you?" he croons, keeping one hand steady on her snout, rubbing up and down, just the way she likes it. 

Lor called him touched the first time he'd calmed her down that way, but Obi-Wan knew she liked it. Of all the creatures, she was the one to whom he could reach out in the Force and touch—gently, always gently, for she missed her cave and her mate, too.

The fix doesn't take long, and soon the gate startles both Obi-Wan and the rollo by slamming shut. 

"Sorry, sorry," the mechanic says. The rollo grunts and snaps sleepily at Obi-Wan, but he dodges nimbly back and slips out between the bars.

"Lucky you didn't get snapped in half," Lor says, but with affection.

"She likes me best," Obi-Wan ventures, smiling a little for Lor. 

The mechanic is right there, though, putting her tools away. He ducks his head when she glances his way. He doesn't like it when people look at him, doesn't know what to say. Especially the other slaves, with their language and expectations, neither of which he knows. Though part of him is beginning to want to.

Lor introduces them, and Shmi asks, "How did you do that?" nodding at the now sleeping rollo. "It usually takes five people or shock batons to keep them in line. Most people get bit before they get that close."

Obi-Wan glances at her sideways, but she's actually curious, her face open and wondering. He stands a little straighter and shrugs. He doesn't want to explain, but then, the Force is only part of it. 

"Most of them don't bother you if you're quiet. And if you're kind too . . . " He shrugs again, glancing at the rollo. "She's a sweet one really. Not all of them are."

"She's not sweet." Lor claps him on the shoulder. "You're a charmer. Watch out for this one," he tells Shmi, and it's hard to tell whether he means for her to be wary or protective. 

Shmi smiles, and her face lights up as if from within. Obi-Wan gets a sense of her in the Force, bright, calm—nothing strong, barely stronger than all the other life forms around him. But she's got a spark of something. 

"The galaxy would be a better place if more beings were kind," she says.

It sounds like a platitude, a simple solution that can't possibly work for all the complexities of the galaxy, like a statement from a classroom in another life that would be the starting point for a philosophical discussion. 

But Obi-Wan hears what isn't said, what doesn't need to be among three slaves on a harsh planet, where kindness is as precious as water and just as necessary for life.

"It would," Obi-Wan says softly. "I guess, we have to make it kind where we can."

"There are worse goals," says Lor, and Shmi nods, but she's still studying Obi-Wan's face, so he ducks his head again, shy. She's older than him, a grown adult, though her age is hard to determine. The desert ages people fast, Obi-Wan is learning, but her dark hair has no gray in it, and the creases at her eyes aren't deep when she smiles. He stops short of thinking it's lovely. There's no reason to get attached.

That evening in the common room between the barracks, when Grandmother is telling a story in a language Obi-Wan is only beginning to understand, he's surprised when Shmi comes to sit beside him. She gives him another of her smiles, close mouthed and quiet, but then turns her attention to the work she's brought. She holds a small piece of pliable scrap metal in one hand and a multitool in the other that she uses to cut and shape the metal into a tiny sculpture that sits cradled in the palm of her hand.

Obi-Wan watches, fascinated, Grandmother's voice washing over him, as Shmi first rounds the bottom and the peels off sections that she turns back like peeling the ripe edges of a fruit back without peeling the whole. From the opening she attaches several short strips—stalks, Obi-Wan realizes when the tips become delicate curls of petals blooming in a squat bouquet. She finishes around the time Grandmother's story does, and when she's satisfied she holds it out to Obi-Wan.

"Here," she says.

Gingerly he takes it, his fingers feeling too big, like he could crush it if he's not careful. But the metal flowers are stronger than they look. "What is it?" he asks.

"An ista flower," Shmi says, tracing a finger along the bulbous bottom. "The seed pods lie dormant in the desert for years and years until the rains come. Then they bloom within hours, these bright blue flowers that burst forth, just like this."

"Have you seen them?" Obi-Wan says, surprised. He didn't know it rained on Tatooine.

"Once," Shmi says, smiling at the memory. "When I was younger than you, it rained, and the desert bloomed. It was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

Obi-Wan can't even imagine. His mind turns to gardens and green trees, and he shies away from the memory of another life. He tries to hand the little sculpture back, but Shmi shakes her head and folds his fingers around it again.

"It's for you," she says. "A reminder that there are beautiful things here, too. And one day when Ar-Amu opens the heavens and it rains for ten days and ten nights, she will wash away Depur and the desert will bloom and we who have lived dormant beneath the sands will be free." 

Her dark eyes meet Obi-Wan's and he can't look away. Hope flutters then dies when he realizes she's telling him one of the stories, but she squeezes his hand, hers warm and strong on his, a wry expression on her face that _knows_ it's not a lot to hold onto, but it's what they have.

It's a little terrifying—Obi-Wan breathes through the fear that has become so ingrained in his short time in captivity—but he wants to believe, and maybe, maybe, maybe, if Shmi can hold onto hope and this little kindness, so can he.

* * *

The boy is stronger than he thinks. 

Shmi hadn't thought so at first. Hadn't thought much about him at all, really, but as he stays in their barracks and learns the stories and their language, and finds his place at the evening gatherings, she thinks that he'll make it. 

Even more surprising, she finds that she wants him to. 

Shmi knows better. Knows it's too soon to get attached, but after seeing him treat the hulking rollo with more compassion than he could expect to receive in return, he slipped past her guard.

She sees him around the Palace over the next few weeks. After the first cage malfunction, her task master has her check all the other locks for the beast cages, and Shmi spends her days cleaning sand out of the mechanisms and oiling the hydraulics until they slip smoothly. The guards mostly leave the slaves alone as they see to the beasts, and Shmi finds herself working near Obi-Wan as often as not. 

He truly has a knack for calming the beasts. It isn't Shmi's way to talk overly much, but she watches, and a few days later, when it's evening and time to set the day aside, she pulls out her scrap and crafts for him a miniature rollo, because she's the beast he sits near on his breaks and the one he visits before he leaves.

"What this for?" he asks when she gives it to him.

Shmi shrugs, feeling self-conscious because she shouldn't get attached. He'll be going back to Pit Master eventually. "I thought you'd like it."

He holds it carefully in his palm and runs a finger along the long snout. "I do," he says quietly, glancing at her. "I don't have anything for you."

She shakes her head. "You can thank me by passing along any scrap you find." She gestures at the clippings and pieces remaining in the pool of her tunic in her lap. She says that to everyone, and most folks do pass along what little things they find meant for the recyclers, when they remember. Shmi mostly collects her own scrap as there's plenty to be had when repairing worn out parts. She doesn't expect much since there's not much loose metal among the beasts.

But Obi-Wan surprises her. A few days later he brings her a curved claw as long as her hand. 

"I'm not sure what you could do with it," he says shyly as he hands it to her. 

It's hollow, and the ends are ragged where it's shed from whichever beast it came from. Shmi doesn't know what she'll use it for either, but she keeps it in her pocket till inspiration strikes and it becomes the trunk of a tree with bare wire branches that she gifts to Zosha. 

More shed claws, interesting pebbles, even a krayt scale—Obi-Wan finds odds and ends Shmi hasn't thought to include before, but with a twist of her pliers become a sliver of moon held in Ekkreth's hand, a single fruit from a tree, the shimmering water of an oasis. 

He bends his head next to hers and watches her work in the evenings, and it's not long before his shyness fades when Shmi asks if she should bend her wire one way or another.

"Here, hold this," she tells him once, when a particular piece of sheet metal refuses to bend to her pliers. 

She wants it to fold into the shape of flower petals around the bright, irregular glass beads Obi-Wan had brought her that will be its center. She's cut the slices for the petals, but Shmi's misjudged the gauge of the metal and it's too stiff and won't bend. With Obi-Wan holding the edge, she uses both hands to get enough strength to finally make the petals curve. It's rather pathetic when she's done, the center cup of the flower is more like a gently dipping plate.

"Let me try," Obi-Wan says, gently taking the recalcitrant sculpture from her. He looks up at her through his auburn hair that falls into his eyes, a little worried, but Shmi smiles to reassure him. 

Obi-Wan is always a little worried. 

She passes him her pliers, but he holds them loosely, curled under his palm as he takes the edges between thumb and forefinger. With his other hand, he pinches the dip between his other thumb and forefinger. He inhales, and then letting out his breath in a long slow exhale, he squeezes the dip—and it slowly, slowly curves into cup.

Shmi watches, astounded, as what she knows is stiff sheet metal that she cold barely make a dent in bends to his will. When she accepts it back, she tries to turn up the corner of one of the petals, but it won't budge.

"How did you do that?" She takes hold of Obi-Wan's hand, but it's flesh and blood, just like hers.

"Don't tell anyone," he replies nervous, and Shmi frowns not sure what she's not supposed to tell. No one would believe her. 

But then Obi-Wan catches her eye. He's still nervous, but there's something else there too, something a little bit mischievous, a little bit daring. 

He holds his hands out for the sculpture, and after Shmi carefully gives it back, separates his palms until they're curled around it, fingers interlaced, nothing but air beneath it. 

Expecting the metal flower to fall, Shmi reflexively reaches to catch it. But it doesn't fall. She stares, eyes flickering to the concentration painted across Obi-Wan's face as it hovers between his hands. Floating. 

He clasps it back in his hands after less than a minute and offers the flower back to her. Shmi takes it, not sure what to say. 

Obi-Wan is shy again, rubbing his hands together anxiously. He's breathing hard and glancing around, but it's late, and most people have gone to bed. Those still in the hall between barracks are engrossed in their own conversations. No one is paying them any mind.

"How did you do that?" Shmi asks again.

Obi-Wan shrugs and won't look at her. She takes his hand again, and his fingers curl around hers. "I just can," he says. "Don't tell anyone."

"I won't," she reassures him, squeezing his hand. This is the gift he's given her: his trust. Shmi intends to hold it close and guard it as the precious gift it is. 

"Your secret is safe with me."

-End-


End file.
